Taiwan's UMC and Europe's Infineon announced on March 7 that they have entered a long-term strategic agreement for MCU (Microcontroller Units) production, with an aim to jointly expand their presence in the automotive industry, the Commercial Daily reported on March 8. Pursuant to the agreement, MCUs integrated with Infineon's eNVM (Embedded Non-Volatile Memory) technology will be fabricated at UMC's Singapore-based Fab 12i on 40nm process. UMC stated that its MCU shipments for automotive products have tripled since 2019, to be one of the growth drivers for the company in the next few years. In addition to MCUs, they will also deepen cooperation in power management and connectivity solutions. 

Shipment value of the Taiwanese semiconductor industry topped about US$38.1 billion in the third quarter of 2022, down 0.6% sequentially but still up 7.2% year-on-year, according to MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute). Established in 1987, MIC is a division of III (Institute for Information Industry), a major government think tank, and one of the leading IT research institutes in Taiwan.